Memorial Day (5 page)

LOS ANGELES

The Qantas 747-400 floated downward, flaps extended, its four powerful General Electric engines throttled almost all the way back. The tarmac at LAX shimmered in the May heat as planes maneuvered to and from the gates picking up and disgorging passengers. From the air it looked like absolute chaos to Imtaz Zubair. In the upper business-class cabin he closed his eyes and silently muttered the wordAlhumdulillah over and over to himself. The phrase meant,Praise be to God, and was part of atasbihs, or Muslim rosary. They had taken his beads away from him, so he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together as if he was holding the well-worn, dark wooden instrument of prayer in his hand. They had told him to show no signs of his faith in public until he had completed his mission, but he could not help himself.

Zubair was a wreck, a ball of frayed nerves with a stomach full of bubbling acid that had resulted in a scorching pyrosis. Even though he was a man of science, he hated flying. His education was rooted in the comforting, ordered logic of mathematics and physics, but it failed him here. Wing mass created lift, engines provided thrust, and planes flew. It was all proven theory, and it was applied thousands of times all over the world every day, but the scientist still fretted. He couldn't accept it, and so he tucked it away deep down with all of his other phobias.

When one of his bosses had told him once that he needed to seek therapy, Zubair had been deeply offended. He was a genius; he knew things, sensed things that very few people could even attempt to grasp. Who was to say that his phobias weren't simply caused by a heightened sense of awareness and a deep understanding of the universe and his relationship with Allah? Zubair suspected things. He talked to God and looked into the future. His role in the battle for his religion was one of great importance. He'd never discussed this with his fellow scientists, for they were too one-dimensional. Religion was a farce to them, a way for simple people to cope with their mundane lives. But not to Zubair; science was proof to him that his God existed. Such magnificence could only have been created by his God.

The touchdown was so gentle that Zubair didn't even realize they were on the ground until the front landing gear was rolling along the tarmac, and the large plane began to slow. He opened his eyes and looked out the window, relieved they were out of the sky. With a smile on his face he muttered a quick prayer of thanks. Unfortunately, his calm didn't last long. As the plane neared its gate, Zubair's smile vanished and his thoughts turned to his next obstacle.

Imtaz Zubair's native country had forsaken him, so he had returned the favor. A math prodigy, Zubair was educated at Pakistan's finest schools and then sent on to Canada and China for his postgraduate work. He was on the path to greatness. Even Dr. A. Q. Khan, the man who had developed and tested Pakistan's first nuclear bomb, had told him that he was the brightest star of his generation of Pakistani scientists. Zubair thought his skills alone would carry him to his chosen field, but they had not.

He found that politics and family connections were more important, and that his deep devotion to his religion created jealousy among his peers. He did not deny the fact that he lacked even the most basic social skills, but to his mind genius was what mattered, not one's ability to politic. Still, they had all turned against him and conspired to deny him his dream of working with Dr. Khan.

He'd still held out hope that his personal relationship with Dr. Khan would carry the day, but those hopes died the day General Musharraf and his band of military officers seized power in a bloodless coup. Musharraf was a secular pig and a lapdog of the Americans. Bowing to pressure from his patrons, Musharraf set about to cleanse true believers from the Pakistani nuclear scientific community.

Zubair had been one of the first to go, exiled to the dreadful Chasnupp nuclear power plant in Central Pakistan, where he was worked like a dog seventy, sometimes eighty hours a week. With his dreams dashed he grew increasingly bitter. He was near his breaking point when providence intervened. A messenger from Allah traveled to the remote region for the sole purpose of contacting him. He was leaving his ramshackle mosque one Friday afternoon when the robed visitor had come to him as if he were the angel Gabriel himself. Allah had a mission of great importance for Zubair, and he was to leave with the stranger immediately.

It had been the beginning of a pilgrimage that had taken him to Iran and the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, and a poisonous desert, and then on to Southeast Asia, Australia, and now America. He was not a worldly man, but as with all of the difficulties in his life, the stresses of travel had brought him closer to Allah. He had witnessed firsthand the decadence of the secular world, and it comforted him that his cause was just.

The plane rolled to a stop, and almost instantly Zubair felt the resumption of his stomach's volcanic action. A film of sweat appeared on his forehead and upper lip. The scientist mopped his brow and then his upper lip with a handkerchief. He felt naked without his mustache, but they had made him shave that also. They wanted him to assimilate, to blend in as much as possible. His hair was cut short and styled for the first time in his life. His glasses had been replaced with contacts, and they had purchased for him a new set of clothes and expensive Tumi luggage in Australia.

The passengers began standing, opening compartments and gathering their things. Afraid to move and give away his nervousness, Zubair was in no hurry. Once most of the other passengers were gone, he retrieved his computer bag and made his way down the narrow stairs to the main body of the plane. He half expected to see a group of men in suits waiting for him, but thankfully there were none. He'd been warned that the Americans had gotten much better at intercepting people who were trying to illegally enter their country.

Two female flight attendants with whorish makeup and skirts that were far too short stood by the door. They thanked him for flying Qantas. Despite what his trainers had told him, Zubair ignored the women, refusing to look them in the eye. Fortunately for him his diminutive stature made him seem shy rather than hostile. Zubair was just five and a half feet tall, and weighed a svelte 142 pounds. With his mustache shaved he easily passed for someone five to ten years younger than his twenty-nine years.

He stepped into the Jetway, joining the stampede for baggage claim and customs and sandwiched between the business-class and economy customers. The stress of the situation and the heat of the enclosed Jetway triggered the scientist's sweat glands, sending them into overdrive. Within seconds salty perspiration dampened every inch of his skin.

Zubair felt trapped, as if he was on a conveyor belt headed toward his own execution. There was no turning back. Passengers continued to pour off the plane, pushing forward, moving through the confined tunnel toward U.S. Customs agents who would ask probing questions. Zubair suddenly wished he had taken the sedative that they had given him to calm his nerves. He had thrown the pills away at the Sydney airport. Allah would never approve of him taking a mood-altering drug. Now he desperately wished he'd kept the little pills, just to get him through this part.

They left the Jetway and at least for a moment things got better. The extra space and cooler air of the terminal felt less confining. The stampede of people continued down a set of stairs to a boxed-in area where they began to cue up in multiple lines to present passports and port of entry/declaration forms to U.S. Customs agents. Zubair got in one of the lines being handled by a man. As long as he had the choice he would not deal with a woman.

When it was his turn he stepped up to the counter, his wheeled black carry-on bag in tow, and handed the agent his passport and paperwork. The man eyed the passport first, flipping through several pages to see where the visitor had been over the past few years.

"First time to America?"

"Yes," Zubair answered with his accented English.

"How long have you been an Australian citizen?"

"Three years."

"And your occupation?" The agent flipped through the paperwork for verification.

"I'm a computer programmer."

"Purpose of your visit?" the man asked in a no-nonsense tone.

Zubair couldn't believe his luck. So far the man hadn't even bothered to look at him. "I'm here for business."

"Traveling alone?"

"Yes."

The agent stamped the passport and handed it back to Zubair, for the first time giving him a good look and noticing the beads of perspiration on his upper lip and forehead. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Ah...yes," answered Zubair, mopping his brow with his handkerchief. "I just don't like to travel."

The Customs agent studied him for a moment longer. He then handed Zubair his passport and paperwork with his right hand, and with his left, he pressed a button letting his colleagues in the watch room know that he had someone they should run through the facial recognition system. It was nothing alarming. Just a standard precaution.

Zubair took his documents and proceeded to the baggage carousel where his one piece of luggage with its bright orange business-class tag was already waiting for him. He grabbed the bag and went to the next checkpoint where he was met by a woman several inches taller than him.

She gestured for him to go the right and said, "Please place your bags on the table and remove any locks."

Zubair did as he was told, with the sickening feeling that he was about to be discovered. He'd been told there was a good chance that they would ask him to open his bags, but there were others who were being allowed to pass by this checkpoint without any inspection at all. Why couldn't he be one of them?

He stood nervously as the woman began looking through each compartment of his two cases. He reminded himself that there was nothing for her to find. The only items that could implicate him were several encrypted files on his laptop, but they would need someone from their notorious National Security Agency to decipher those. After several minutes the woman closed the bags and told Zubair he was free to go.

Astonished, Zubair grabbed his bags and handed his paperwork to another agent. The man then gestured for him to leave the secure area. Zubair placed his passport in his pocket, and looked down the long hallway in front of him. Up ahead he could see daylight. As he wheeled his bags down the hallway he could barely believe he'd made it through customs. Giddy with excitement he quickened his pace. He'd defeated the gauntlet of American security, and there was nothing they could do to stop him now. He was free to roam America and do his work.Youmud Deen, the day of judgment, was fast approaching, and Zubair would strike a mighty blow for Islam.

PAKISTAN

Four super-quiet MH-6 Little Bird helicopters wound their way through the craggy canyon at seventy miles per hour in near total darkness. Sixteen of the most highly trained and seasoned soldiers the world had ever seen rode two on each side of the small agile helicopters, their scuffed and worn combat boots dangling in the cool mountain air, their eyes protected by clear goggles. The uniforms varied slightly; some wore flight suits, while others had chosen the desert camouflage version of the U.S. army's standard battle dress, or BDUs. They all wore body armor, knee and elbow pads, and a specialized cut-down helmet with night-vision goggles affixed in a pop-down pop-up mode.

They carried an arsenal of weapons, ranging from pistols, to shotguns, to sniping rifles, to light and heavy machine guns. None of them had bothered to bring silencers. Their presence would be known within seconds of their arrival, and once they hit the ground there was a chance they'd need every extra bullet and grenade they could carry. They were heading directly into the thick of things.

The nimble helicopters ducked and bucked their way through the cool mountain air like some sadistic amusement park ride, but the men sitting on the specially designed platforms were used to it. They were miles away from civilization in a foreign land that was among the most desolate and inhospitable places on earth, and every last one of them was eagerly anticipating the battle that lay ahead.

A voice crackled over their earpieces announcing that they were one minute out from the target. In the resulting flurry of activity, optic rifle sights, red laser dot pointers, and night-vision goggles, or NVGs, were turned on, gear was shifted, and those who weren't already cocked and locked did so.

The pilots had warned all the men in the premission briefing what would happen next. The helicopters banked sharply around a turn in the mountain pass and accelerated into a steep dive, hugging the terrain as the face of the mountain gave way to a valley approximately 3,000 feet below.

The isolated village rushed up to meet them. There was no sign of life at this early hour. The pilot in the lead chopper marked the target and began to pull up while the other three Little Birds continued their ground-hugging ride in a race against the clock to deliver their deadly warriors before the enemy could respond and put up a fight.

GENERAL KEVIN HARLEYfocused intently on the grainy screen before him. He had three to choose from, but for now his attention was on the middle one. The other two screens wouldn't have anything important on them for another minute or so. The four helicopters came into view at precisely the expected moment. Harley watched as the Little Birds decreased speed and broke formation. Three of them hugged the deck while the fourth gained altitude. It was hard to tell from looking at his screen since the image was being shot by a small reconnaissance drone circling 10,000 feet above the village, but it was Harley's battle plan and he knew every minute detail.

General Harley was wearing a bulky in-flight headset so he could communicate with his people over the loud General Electric engines growling just a few feet above his head. In the thin mountain air the engines had to work extra hard to keep the command-and-control bird from dropping like the 12,000-pound stone that it was. The UH-60 Blackhawk was aglow in a wash of modern circuitry and flat-screen monitors. The floor of the bird was covered with bulletproof Kevlar panels, and each man wore a flak vest, even though their intent was to stay out of the action in order to orchestrate the modern military ballet from above. The advanced airborne command-and-control bird had become a second home to five of the six men strapped into the troop compartment.

Several of them had been stationed in Afghanistan for nearly two years logging countless hours at their airborne consoles. They'd hunted al-Qaeda members, the Taliban, drug dealers, and bandits-anyone who tried to undermine the authority of the new U.S.-backed government, but most of all they hunted al-Qaeda.

Members of al-Qaeda were at the top of these soldiers' lists, the rightful targets of genuine retribution and hatred. To a man, their reasons were both personal and patriotic. While their fellow Americans went on with their lives, these Special Forces operators were on the other side of the planet stoically settling a score. To refer to them as simple vigilantes would be an insult to their level of sophistication and training, but even they would admit that they were on a mission of revenge. They were here to send a very clear message that America would not tolerate the slaughter of 3,000 of its citizens.

The sixth passenger in the troop compartment was an outsider, but a welcome one, and a man they all respected. Mitch Rapp had heard of this outfit before. Men and women from the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO) would return from Afghanistan and tell stories about Task Force 11, an amalgamation of Special Forces bad-asses from the various branches of the U.S. military. They were well funded, well equipped, exquisitely trained, highly motivated, and feared by anyone with enough sense to understand that they were quite possibly the most seasoned, potent, mobile fighting force in action today.

The DO operatives, no shrinking violets themselves, were in awe of the bravado and skill this group brought to bear against the enemy. Their fighting spirit was buoyed by the knowledge that their abilities as a unit were unmatched, they feared no one, and held nothing back, for their enemy only understood one thing-brute force. Their kill ratio was off the charts. Having lost only a handful of men since their deployment, they had done serious damage to their enemies, inflicting casualties in the thousands.

The task force had operated in relative anonymity until someone in Washington decided the PR was too much to pass up. Their accomplishments were leaked, and after that the job had gotten a little more difficult. Reporters began nosing around, wanting to know how the group operated. Politicians and Pentagon officials wanted briefings, and a few even made the effort to travel to Afghanistan.

All of it was a distraction from Task Force 11's mission. Fortunately for the group, everyone's attention soon shifted to Iraq. Shortly after the war started an innocuous statement was released by the Pentagon stating that Task Force 11 was being disbanded. A few of their assets were actually transferred to the new theater of war, enough to give credibility to the story but not enough to harm the group's effectiveness. With the attention of the world focused elsewhere, Afghanistan turned into the perfect place for the Special Forces to hone their skills-and General Harley and his men had done exactly that.

Rapp had never met the general before, but the two clicked almost immediately. As soon as Kennedy had given him the go-ahead, Rapp was on the phone to the Joint Special Operations Command telling them what he needed. By the time he landed in Afghanistan, Harley and his men were ready to go. Harley was skeptical of Rapp's plans at first. He'd been in Southwest Asia for the better part of two years and had been rebuffed so many times for asking to cross the border into Pakistan that his superiors back at MacDill Air Force Base told him to cease and desist, or he'd be reassigned.

Rapp suspected that sometime between his departure from Washington and arrival in Kandahar, Harley had realized that this was probably going to be his one and only chance to set foot in Pakistan. The operation that Harley had drawn up for him was far more than a simple snatch and grab-it was a full-blown assault. Rapp had been involved in enough of these types of operations to understand that it was never a bad idea to take into account what the military commander thought was the best way to crack a nut, but he'd been thinking of something smaller, something less complex. Harley's plan was neither. It involved a force five times what Rapp had imagined and it was absolutely ballsy.

The Special Forces community, more than any other asset in the American military, was forced to constantly refine their abilities and strategies. They looked for ways to either avoid repeating mistakes or to minimize the effect of things they could not control. This zeal to avoid repeating the mistakes of those who had gone into battle before them meant that no single modern engagement had been analyzed more thoroughly than the incident in Somalia in 1993 where nineteen Army Rangers and Delta Force operators were killed in a daytime raid that had spun disastrously out of control. There wasn't a special forces commander on active duty who hadn't studied every last detail of that Mogadishu operation, and they'd all come away with the same conclusion: never operate during daylight if you don't have to, and if you're not sure what you're up against, don't go in without close air support, or armor, or both.

For political reasons the close air support that Harley wanted to bring along wasn't an option. They were supposed to get in and out without alerting the Pakistanis, and if Harley brought in an AC-130U Spooky gunship it would immediately be picked up by radar. The mountainous terrain and the brevity of the mission dictated that armor also was not an option. That left General Harley in the difficult position of trying to launch a helicopter assault into a hostile village numbering approximately 1,000 people without armor and without fixed-wing close air support. And this wasn't just any village. According to intelligence reports from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, this was an al-Qaeda stronghold. These people were not going to simply hide in their huts and wait for the Americans to leave. They would put up a serious fight.

General Harley's solution to the problem at first seemed a bit much to Rapp, but as the general walked him through each element of his plan, Rapp began to see the true tactical genius behind it. Kennedy had gone to the president and received permission to launch a covert strike across the border into Pakistan. General Harley had decided to use the broadest definition of the wordstrike, looking at this operation as his one and only chance to clean out a vipers' nest, and Rapp wasn't about to stand in his way.